Common Early Startup Mistakes

by Matthew Burgess on October 18, 2009

I’ve been discovering Mark Suster’s blog, Both Sides of the Table, where he discusses life and times of early stage technology companies. Having been both an entrepreneur (many times over) and now a venture capitalist, he brings a unique voice to the conversation.

In a recent blog post, he opines on the Most Common Early Start-up Mistakes. A summary:

Moonlight Responsibly – how to get started when you’re still stuck in your cube.

Register a company – he’s talking about forming an LLC or corporation: this is where we (Formation Solutions) can help. OK, he mentions other companies, but you know you love FS.

Pick the Founding Members – founding team should never have more than 2 members.

Research Your Market – not new advice, but always worth repeating

Get Customer Input – to what he says on this, I would add that there are many ways to use PPC advertising and informational products to test markets before even fully productizing. Ask me if you’re interested in what I mean.